Posts tagged with: September Hour a Day Challenge

Hard to believe, but another summer’s winding to a close.

For many writers, summer’s a slow time, what with family vacations and bored, housebound kids chipping away at their focus. For me, though, summer’s by far the most productive time of the year…because I’m a teacher, and the second I step back into the classroom in August, I barely get to catch my breath until late June.

Last year as I faced the return of my not-for-the-weak-of-heart day job, I vowed not to lose my summer writing momentum entirely: I committed to writing one hour a day for the entire month of September, and I challenged other writers to join me (see my original post here.)

And I did it! I really did it! I wrote an hour a day…well, almost every day. AND I GOT LOTS OF WRITING DONE even while the day job tried its best to crush me. (You can hear me cheering last October 2 here.)

The real, real beauty part was that the daily habit held out beyond September! If you were here for my 2014 NaNoWriMo Mid-Point Check-in and Final Reckoning posts, you know I avoided my usual binge-and-purge approach to getting my 50,000 words, and instead did slow-and-steady almost every day!!

Just take another gander at my final word-count chart (seriously, it felt like a miracle at the time…but a surprisingly do-able miracle):

It still makes me smile.

And, thanks to the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood’s Winter Writing Festival (the 2016 edition starts in January!! Watch this space for details!!), I kept up the pace through the dim, dingy months…and finished a new book in April.

YAY!!! The Tortoise beat the Hare for a darned good reason.

Well, I met 128 new students yeseterday, and the educational tidal wave is crashing over me once again. But I’m determined to make my hour a day happen this school year as well.

Who wants to join me for the month of September???

Last year, I set up an Accountability Group on Facebook so we could check in and cheer each other on, and I’d love to do that again.

If you want to join, let me know in the comments below. If we’re already Facebook Friends, I’ll send you an invite to the group. If we’re not, send me a Friend Request and we’ll get the process going.